Column: The NBA has a tanking problem that keeps getting worse

New York Knicks center Tyson Chandler, guard Beno Udrih and forward Carmelo Anthony sit the bench during a blowout loss to the Chicago Bulls on Christmas Day at Madison Square Garden in New York. (AP)

If you hoped to spend your Christmas afternoon on the couch, avoiding the sea of torn-up wrapping paper from the holiday gift carnage and taking in some quality NBA games ... well, blame New York. And the salary cap. and the draft. And David Stern.

First, the old, battered and disinterested New York Nets invited an equally battered but far more prideful Bulls team into their billion-dollar Barclays Center to hang an ugly, 18-point loss on them.

That seemed destined to be the dud of the day ... until the next game came on.

The Knicks, who have played 49 Christmas Day games in the organization's storied history, never had lost by as many as 29 points at home for the holiday. And yet, just 17 days after losing by 41 points at their refurbished Madison Square Garden to a flaccid Celtics team, the Knicks had neither the firepower nor self-respect to stop the Oklahoma City Thunder from trouncing them.

Philadelphia 76ers' Tony Wroten goes to the rim against the Brooklyn Nets in a game between two bottom-feeding Eastern Conference teams. (AP)

The Knicks and Nets both fell to 9-19 and are only 2 ½ games out of the Eastern Conference playoff race. Of course, calling what is going on in the East a race is like calling the open swim session at the senior center a meet.

Boston is in possession of the final playoff slot in the East. If you were to ask any Celtics fan, that would be considered a disaster. After all, the entire point of Boston shipping Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to the Nets was to rebuild with that all-too common ploy, The Tank.

The Sixers went in the tank, although in their defense the Andrew Bynum debacle left them little option but to begin the scrap-and-start-over process. The problem is, more and more teams are trying to jump into the extremely shallow pool from which a couple of truly great teams have been built using that method.

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The Thunder are one of those examples. Of course, the good fortune that landed Oklahoma City Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in consecutive drafts also included that minor detail of moving the entire franchise to another city. The Celtics of the second half of the aughts are considered another example, although their use of The Tank involved clearing cap and acquiring Garnett and Ray Allen in a series of deals that were only doable because of the Celtics' reputation as the greatest franchise in league history.

Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens has his team in the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference despite a struggling season. (AP)

Despite what the Sixers tried to make you think when clownish CEO Adam Aron was around, Philly's NBA legacy doesn't even sniff Boston's. Besides, the Nets and Knicks tried to use versions of the Celtics' reloading method in recent years. The results were the visual garbage on your television Wednesday.The irony is that the NBA's best franchise of the new millenium — the San Antonio Spurs, who have three titles and have won 71 percent of their games since 2001 — have maintained their dominance well after age took away Tim Duncan's status as a superstar without a pick any higher than No. 20 overall in the draft.

Despite the lesson the Spurs and a team like the Indiana Pacers should teach teams, this is what the NBA's salary-cap system has created: scads of teams not even trying to compete so it can try to hit it big in the draft lottery, or clear room to acquire high-priced veterans and mix them into an easy-bake contender.

The NBA, a league ruled by Stern as its commissioner, has been slow to figure out a way to stop what has turned into front offices partaking in a win-shaving scandal — one that is every bit as insulting and damaging as a point-shaving scandal carried out by players could ever be. According to a report by Grantland's Zach Lowe, a proposal for a rotating draft system has been put together for NBA owners to consider. Think of it as a roulette wheel with 30 numbers, where each team's draft spot shifts one spot on the wheel each year for three decades.

It would at least represent an effort to fix a league that has become largely unwatchable and uninteresting. The Eastern Conference entered the holiday a collective 53 games under .500. The season is one-third over, and the Heat and Pacers are doing nothing but playing 82 exhibition games this regular season, then a couple of tune-up rounds in the playoffs before their seasons truly begin when they play for a spot in the NBA Finals. It's disgraceful to the point where it's tough to fathom why anyone east of the Mississippi would bother buying a ticket to an NBA regular-season game.

Certainly no one who watched the Christmas travesties that took place in New York could find a reason to battle a sea of wrapping paper, let alone the Cross Bronx Expressway, for that.

Dennis Deitch is a sportswriter for the Delaware County Daily Times. Follow him on Twitter @DennisDeitch.

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